1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc drive apparatus which performs information processing for a disc-shaped recording medium, and more particularly, to a collapsible disc drive apparatus which can be reduced in size to become compact when unused.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a disc drive apparatus has become remarkably compact by miniaturizing a disc drive mechanism. However, in general, a disc drive apparatus is still larger than the size of a disc used as a recording medium.
Usually, in a disc drive apparatus, data is recorded on or played back from a disc in the state that the disc is being housed in a disc housing area in the disc drive apparatus. Therefore, the disc drive apparatus must have a disc housing area large enough to house a whole disc. This makes it difficult to reduce the size of the disc drive apparatus to be smaller than the size of a disc. Thus, it has been difficult to incorporate a reliable easy-to-operate disc drive apparatus with a simple structure in a thin flat-type monitor and the like.
At present, various configurations are proposed to meet the increased demand for miniaturization, reliability and operability of a disc drive apparatus. For example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2000-101362 (paragraphs 0014-0018, FIG. 2) discloses a disc drive apparatus wherein a recording/playback unit is housed in the apparatus and released from the apparatus without spoiling the characteristics of the thin image display apparatus such as a wall-hooked type television. In a disc drive apparatus mounted in a flat thin type monitor, the recording/playback unit is supported in the housing with being in parallel to a display panel when it is unused. Upon ejecting, the recording/playback unit is moved downward in the housing and inclined so as to project outside the housing. When the recording/playback unit is stored in the housing, it is moved upward in the housing while changing the inclination angle of the unit.
However, in the art disclosed in the Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2000-101362, the recording/playback unit comes in and goes out from the housing. Thus, when a recording medium is placed on the recording/playback unit and the recording/playback unit is housed in the housing, the recording medium and recording/playback unit are hidden in the housing. Therefore, it is impossible to provide an operation panel for setting the recording/playback unit to desired operation states or stop state. In this case, an operation panel is provided in a part of the outside surface of the housing of a flat-type monitor. This becomes a restriction in designing a flat-type monitor.